Puerto Vallarta Offers A Five-Star Beach Lifestyle For Retirees

Puerto Vallarta Is #1 For Pacific Beach Life

If it’s a Pacific coast lifestyle you’re in the market for overseas, Mexico offers many good options, including the destination that qualifies as my top recommendation for a fully appointed Pacific coast lifestyle that’s also turnkey-ready right now:

Puerto Vallarta

Puerto Vallarta is neither the cheapest retirement choice in the world nor the cheapest option within Mexico. You aren’t likely to find it a bargain compared with the cost of living Stateside… unless you compare it (as you should) with the cost of living in top Pacific coast locales north of the Rio Grande. Puerto Vallarta could be called a bargain compared with the cost of living in Newport Beach, for example.

In Puerto Vallarta, though, a budget-friendly cost of living is not the point.

This isn’t developing-world living. This stretch of Mexico’s Pacific coastline has already been developed to a high level. Life here can be not only comfortable, but also easy and even luxury.

This is a place to come to enjoy a world-class Pacific coast lifestyle.

Picturesque downtown Puerto Vallarta has everything you might need

Note that I didn’t say world-class Pacific coast. You can find that many places, including in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama, for example. What you don’t find in those places is the same standard of lifestyle to support the views.

Generally speaking, Pacific coast destinations in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama are still emerging… places where, sure, someday, maybe, there will exist international-standard amenities. This is for sure the case all along Nicaragua’s beautiful Pacific coast… and it’s true, as well, though increasingly less so, along the Pacific coasts of Costa Rica and Panama, where, in both cases, truly international-standard development and infrastructure are only today beginning to appear on the scene.

In Puerto Vallarta, you aren’t buying for someday. In Puerto Vallarta, you have the opportunity to buy a world-class lifestyle in a region with world-class beaches and ocean views that is supported, right now, by world-class golf courses, marinas, roadways, restaurants, and shopping.

This is a lifestyle that is available only on a limited basis worldwide, a lifestyle that is truly (not metaphorically) comparable to the best you could enjoy in southern California… if you could afford it.

And my point is that this enviable lifestyle, some might even call it a lifestyle of the rich and famous, is not some property developer’s vision or speculator’s dream.

I was first in P.V. more than 20 years ago. Back then, developing this coast into a world-class destination was the talk of so many developers and speculators.

I returned recently, two decades later, to find that this region is one place in the world where the developers and the speculators have actually succeeded in creating something competitive on a global scale.

The Pacific coast in and around Puerto Vallarta has been invested in, over decades, not only by developers and speculators, but also, importantly, by the Mexican government. The government has supported private investment in this region over time, most recently focusing its attention here on the stretch of coast running for about 100 miles north from Nuevo Vallarta.

The Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a distinguished landmark in the Puerto Vallarta skyline.

As a result, this isn’t a place to plan for a fully appointed retirement at the beach someday. This isn’t a place to invest based on the pretty watercolor drawings of a savvy marketing group.

This is one of the best places I can think of to embrace a fully appointed Pacific beach retirement lifestyle right now.

And the best part is that, here in P.V., not only can you plug into a fully developed retirement lifestyle… built, furnished, landscaped, and within minutes of the fairway or the yacht club if those pastimes interest you… but, unlike in southern California, you can also afford it.

No, probably not on a Social Security-only retirement income. But if your retirement budget is a bit bigger, and you’ve dreamt your whole life of retiring with a view of the crashing Pacific, I’d say this could be your number-one right-now choice.

Kathleen Peddicord has covered the live, retire, and do business overseas beat for more than 30 years and is considered the world's foremost authority on these subjects. She has traveled to more than 75 countries, invested in real estate in 21, established businesses in 7, renovated historic properties in 6, and educated her children in 4.

Kathleen has moved children, staff, enterprises, household goods, and pets across three continents, from the East Coast of the United States to Waterford, Ireland... then to Paris, France... next to Panama City, where she has based her Live and Invest Overseas business. Most recently, Kathleen and her husband Lief Simon are dividing their time between Panama and Paris.

Kathleen was a partner with Agora Publishing’s International Living group for 23 years. In that capacity, she opened her first office overseas, in Waterford, Ireland, where she managed a staff of up to 30 employees for more than 10 years. Kathleen also opened, staffed, and operated International Living publishing and real estate marketing offices in Panama City, Panama; Granada, Nicaragua; Roatan, Honduras; San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; Quito, Ecuador; and Paris, France.

Kathleen moved on from her role with Agora in 2007 and launched her Live and Invest Overseas group in 2008. In the years since, she has built Live and Invest Overseas into a successful, recognized, and respected multi-million-dollar business that employs a staff of 35 in Panama City and dozens of writers and other resources around the world.

Kathleen has been quoted by The New York Times, Money magazine, MSNBC, Yahoo Finance, the AARP, and beyond. She has appeared often on radio and television (including Bloomberg and CNBC) and speaks regularly on topics to do with living, retiring, investing, and doing business around the world.

In addition to her own daily e-letter, the Overseas Opportunity Letter, with a circulation of more than 300,000 readers, Kathleen writes regularly for U.S. News & World Report and Forbes.